In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of
our friends.-Martin Luther King Jr.
A few days ago, the Panda Bear was priding herself on escaping the tiredness and lethargy that comes with the Fall season. Well pride cometh before a fall. Today the Panda Bear feels both tired and hungry. Her body feels like she is getting ready to hibernate.
The Panda Bear was talking with a friend about the number of people who are dropping out of the US workforce as soon as they come into some money. The Panda Bear herself believes that most people are in the work force now solely for the money. Gone are the days where bored housewives, rich people and retired people were in the paid workforce because they needed something to do. Nowadays, the Panda Bear thinks people are in the paid workforce strictly for the money.
Recently more has been written about workplace bullying. The recession is making it harder for people to leave jobs if they feel they are badly treated. The Panda Bear has experienced bullying at work and has seen other people bullied at work. She thinks most organizations have an unwritten policy not to intervene when a superior is abusive to a subordinate. High level people who bully have to be very calculating and opportunistic in their bullying. The could not hold the positions they have without being very sweet and agreeable to the right people. They could not be a certain way with their bosses and keep their jobs.
The Panda Bear believes that only a minority of people are bullies. However, if they people around bullies who are not bullies keep quiet about the bullies behavior it empowers the bullies. It makes both the bullies and the victims feel like more people support the bully than really do, Let us say for the sake of argument that a quarter of the population has some tendency to be bully while another quarter of the population has some tendency to be bullied. If the half that are neither bullies or bullied keep quiet about bullying, it can make the bully seem like they have the majority of people behind them when maybe the actual majority of opinion is against them.
The Panda Bear has read that for children the goal of some anti-bullying programs was to create an atmosphere where children feel empowered to speak up against bullying when they see other children being bullied. Something similar should be done so adults feel free to speak up when they see other adults being bullied.
The Panda Bear has never worked for a unionized workplace but it has always been a dream of hers to work in a unionized environment for over twenty-five years since a supervisor once refused to correct the Panda Bear's production statistics for which the supervisor admitted that she total them wrongly and should have been higher. The Panda Bear felt she might have had some recourse in an unionized office.
Well the Panda Bear has just joined the AFL-CIO's mailing list. Will the union set her free? Or are unions another branch of the corrupt oligarch 'that run the US?
We had a new boy join our Hebrew School class from another state. Because he talked a little differently and dressed a little differently, he was the target of endless bullying until the Rabbi/Educational Director had to get involved. I blame the parents. And that was Hebrew School.
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